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Colossians 1:15-20 Preexistence or Preeminence? Pg 6
NOTES
*(1) See, for example, The Living Bible on 2 Cor. 4:4.
*(2) This word may be transliterated as "character," but the modern English word has come a rather long way from its original Greek meaning.
*(3) "Majesty" is probably used here as an equivalent for the divine name, YHWH.
*(4) "When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the LORD's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance" (Deut. 32:8,9 NIV).
*(5) See the excellent discussion of prototokos in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, VI, 871-881.
*(6) Ibid., VI, 879.
*(7) Stated in the Nicene Creed as "begotten of the Father before all the ages"--my translation from the Greek text found in Schaff's Creeds of Christendom, II, 57. Also see article "Eternal generation," p. 194, in Baker's Dictionary of Theology.
*(8) "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."
*(9) Arndt and Gingrich's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, article pro.
*(10) Ibid., article arche.
*(11) "To know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
*(12) "For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God; to him God gives the Spirit without limit" (John 3:34).
*(13) Philippians 2:6, speaking of the historical person Christ Jesus, tells us that--as a man-- he was in the morphe of God. This word, usually translated "form," in this context has the other Koiné Greek meaning of "status, position, rank." This is proved by the use of the same word in verse 7, where Christ is shown to have taken the "status" or "position" of a servant. Cf. morphe in Moulton and Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament; and Kenneth S. Wuest, The Practical Use of the Greek New Testament, p. 84.